


First Time Flying

by lyricwritesprose



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 01:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11197770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricwritesprose/pseuds/lyricwritesprose
Summary: There's a first time for everything. Including leaping off very tall structures.





	First Time Flying

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a stocking stuffer for LadyMercury.

It would work. I knew it would work because the Doctor had made a passing remark about me jumping off very tall things and expecting him to catch me. That didn't mean my heart wasn't pounding.

From the observation platform of the Spire, you could theoretically see all of the Kiriphon Imperial District, although there was a sight shield to stop commoners from catching a glimpse of the forbidden gardens or the night palace. The District stretched from the Talann River delta to the Coriol Mountains, and was the center of administration for close to thirty worlds. Anyone who could manipulate the Emperor could raze continents on a whim. Which was why, of course, they'd put the cortical control circlet into something it was practically heresy to touch.

Right now, I couldn't see any of the landscape. The observation platform looked down on a sea of clouds.

I heard a soft, incongruously polite _ding_ as the lift arrived, and there was no more time. I took a deep breath, pressed the button that controlled the forcefield, and tossed the black rucksack over the railing. Then, as the lift doors opened on a troop of extremely cross Praetorians, I stepped up on the rail, gave them a mocking little wave of my fingers, and let myself fall backwards.

If you've never let yourself fall, there's something exhilarating and freeing about it. A brilliant green plasm-bolt sliced through the air where I'd just been, but I didn't hear it; the wind was too loud. The air was very cold and very thin, and it reminded me of diving into cold surf: that shock of being skin-to-skin with the world, of being alive in every nerve ending. It was like flying. It was—

The air beneath me was empty. Only clouds.

He couldn't have not gotten my message. I had carved up a _moon_ to get him that message.

Fury, that he could look me in the eyes and tell me he would always catch me. A gut-punch of desolation, that he had lied about everything. The whisper of childhood, a breath of laughter: _silly child. Who could possibly care about you?_

And then, below me—much, much too far below me—a light, flashing off and on, and a familiar shape.

From where I was, it looked roughly the size of a paperclip. But it was getting larger fast.

I had a choice. I could flip over, fall feet-first to protect my brain, and induce unconsciousness to make myself as limp as possible on impact—that was the only way I could conceivably survive a fall of that distance. Or I could trust that the Doctor knew what he was doing.

I didn't know when he was. He might not even know me. Or if he did, if he still knew everything about me, he had every reason in the universe to want me broken. This fantasy I was living in, this dream where we would always save each other even if we weren't quite sure who the other was—wasn't I a bit old for fairy tales?

I closed my eyes for a split second, then stretched out, head-first, into a dive.

The moment stretched like taffy. I shot through the TARDIS doors, just a touch off-center, and saw the control room go by in slow motion—saw the Doctor, who was standing at a right angle to me, duck behind the console as the rucksack bulleted past. There was a door below me, and—

And I was in the TARDIS's gravity now, which meant I wasn't falling, I was shooting sideways in a long, flat arc. Flying without wings, thanks to the speed I had gathered in those long, long seconds of plummeting.

Through the control room, down a corridor—the floor was getting awfully close—and then there was the TARDIS swimming pool, with the white Grecian columns around it. I sliced into the water at the most shallow angle possible.

When I came to rest, I had cut a wake across most of the pool. But I wasn't hurt. Not even the bruises I had expected, when I thought I was only going to fall a few meters. I felt breathless and euphoric.

I turned and made my way back to the other end of the pool. The door opened as I got there, and the Doctor leaned against the doorway, dangling the (rather dented) Kiriphon Imperial crown from one finger. "Should I ask?"

I smiled. "Hello, sweetie."


End file.
